The South African and International Exhibition was a world's fair held in
Kimberley,
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...
in 1892 to promote trade and labour.
The exhibition
The exhibition was opened by
Henry Loch,
High Commissioner for Southern Africa
The British office of high commissioner for Southern Africa was responsible for governing British possessions in Southern Africa, latterly the protectorates of Basutoland (now Lesotho), the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) and Swaziland ...
on 8 September 1892
and closed 20 January 1893.
, Prime Minister of Cape Colony, decided that the exhibition should be held in Kimberley. It was held in the Public Gardens of Kimberley
(now Queen's Park)
on a 30-acre site, with corrugated iron buildings
designed D. W. Greatbatch.
There were art displays including paintings from the
Royal Collection, mineral displays of diamonds, coal, crocidolite, diamonds, gold and silver, mining machinery,
and sheep shearing equipment.
400 000 people attended, and the fair lost £14,195,
with the loss being covered by Rhodes.
Legacy
The De Beers exhibit was taken to be displayed at the
1893 Chicago exhibition.
The art hall was converted to be used by the
Kimberley Rifles, and subsequently used as a typhoid hospital during the
Boer war
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...
.
References
{{List of world's fairs in Africa
1892 establishments in the Cape Colony
1893 disestablishments in the Cape Colony
1890s events
World's fairs in Africa